An on-and-off hobby I've taken up during the summer, is writing poetry :O I've never been a poetic type, so I dunno how I ever got inspiration to try it, but I did so whatever. A muse is a muse :O
So here's all I've done so far. I'll put little personal comments under each one in ittalics.
Elegiac Sonnet for Dave
Dawn doth diverge from dusk as the dust digresses, All over the land lit dark and bright confesses, Valiant knight steward of thy tower expresses:
In majesty's hall crashes the kavetching chair Derelict it is as I am wont of late Mare, Save my name honour as I mean sorry sincere.
Caught amidst the tempest flung spiraling careless Out the ferry quite contrary t'my wish boundless, Turning calm t'eye refuge am I truly heedless.
Take from me what you wish, desire none have I, Borrowing such martyrdom as epics claim sigh: Yearning oft only for closure bliss give'th me nigh,
Respectfully all else I must deny for gay Death alone solitude bring, down this dark doom'd day.
This one was done for/in memory of a suicidal friend. Luckily he ostensibly is no longer suicidal. This was the first poem I ever wrote, and I got inspiration to write it from Through The Looking Glass and What Alice Saw, which I had finished the night I wrote this. I don't care for the "kavetching chair" part, but otherwise I like this poem.
Love Couplets in Iambic Hexameter
I'd like for you to think upon one thing for me, Loudly for the world to see I wish to decree:
Over all other things in importance I want, Valiantly to illustrate t'you and even flaunt,
Eager as early bird who knows he'll get the worm, Yearning like the bar'd student does to join the firm:
On top of the planet I lust to say it's true: Unparalleled in my mind t'indite: I, love: You.
I didn't like this one much when I wrote it, but I like it more every time I read it, it just turned out really well I think. I didn't have any inspiration or motivation when I wrote this, part of what surprises me that it turned out well anyway. I wrote this not long after the first one, maybe a couple weeks after at most.
Why fog? - Couplets in Iambic Hexameter
The dawn rose veiled by the clouds the battle bequeathed, And hardly could we see to return weapons sheathed,
Never to see that sun again could friends and foes, Killed but for what aim 'cept to fog the sun with blows?
A mapper at broodwarmaps.net asked me to write a short poem to put into the description of a map he was going to make, but it ending up not fitting =/ Personally this is my favourite poem I've written. The title is stupid, but I just made one up to have a title.
Iambic Hexameter Quartets for Ryan
Rising above to strike opponents down he comes, Yearning to clean the field of filth as the beat drums, And eviscerate foes friends flee with eerie hums Not quieted by the screams of evil in sums,
Killing all does Ryan my captain O noble And pure leader he is yes, as the white opal Itself, yet moves like his dark templar are mobile, Moving in silence dealing precision able,
Inevitable is His victory always, Not unlike the gods themselves he explores that maze Cultivated by the random of life, his gaze Hath no bounds but the infinity 'yond the haze.
Ever valiant and victorious is that Great, Universally unchallenged cept to cruel fate, Never faltering, always advancing, to sate Gallant thirst for triumph Auir loves, foemen hate.
A friend of mine jokingly asked me to write a poem about his sc prowess, so I did I don't care much for this one, it's awkward.
The Hero Quintet in Iambic Hexameter
Zealous as any hero promised nothing but, Earns the world and more with valiant deed 'thout strut, Leans on none the world but hisself alone and what, Does the world do but lean on him, let him get cut, And amid all he perseveres, lone like the mut.
It's been too soon since I wrote this, only a week or two at most, for me to judge this one. I don't know if I like it or not.
Rondel of TeamLiquid
Terror stews in enemy's mind, Egregiously ousting their lives, As we overwhelm from our hives.
Making foes truly fear our kind, Loosening mortal coils in fives, Icy death embraces their blind,
Quagmires of blood all in a wind, Under our plank do take their dives, Igniting our triumph through rives, Deftly Team Liquid dawns Earth-kind.
I thought doing five couplets in iambic hexameter would be boring, so I searched for some structure involving two stanzas of three lines, and one of four, and found the "Rondel". I don't really like it, 8 syllables is hard to work with, and I don't like the rhyme scheme of abb aba abba. I might make another TeamLiquid one with just five couplets in iambic hexameter, I'm just so much more comfortable with that =/ Overall I'm not terribly happy with this one.
Any kind of feedback would be appreciated, things you like or dislike, anything really!
On July 04 2008 07:58 GeneralStan wrote: Why do you feel the need to write in such strict forms?
I dunno, that's just my style I guess. I like strict structures, it makes it easy for me personally. So far, with every poem I write, first thing I do is come up with a word or name or something and spell it vertically, forming the first letter of every line, then I add spaces depending on how long the word turns out to be to come up with my lines, and after that I write the first line, usually it's already in my head. The second, and maybe third or fourth line, etc, depending on how I broke the lines up, are then easy to write since all they have to do is have the last word rhyme with the last word of the previous line, and make sense with the other line. When I made my first two poems (with a couple weeks I think between making each) I found that they both ended up using the same meter (iambic hexameter), so I've been keeping that. But for the first and second poem, I just made up the first line, and then matched the first line's meter for each subsequent line. By using this strict form, I already have the amount of lines, the meter, the first letter of each line, and I've limited which words could be the last word of atleast the second line, possibly more depending on the length of the poem (which determines how many lines are in each stanza). Now, this still leaves me a LOT of freedom for creativity, but it forces some boundaries, which makes it easier to control the language, because I force myself to have a lesser selection of available words while still leaving me room to breathe. Also, I like the sound of strict meter and rhyme better personally, I hate it when there's different amounts of syllables, it just sounds messy to me, especially/atleast in rhyming lines. The hardest thing about doing these poems besides thinking of which words to use to convey whatever pops into my head, is ensuring that it sounds good if you do the iambic emphasis out loud. I've had to take out words and redo some sentences in some of the poems to ensure that it doesn't sound retarded the way the emphasis on the words turns out. It's hard to explain if you don't already know what I'm talking about, but I could try to write an example if anyone wants.
On July 04 2008 07:58 Jibba wrote: I'm mostly into slam poetry, but I really really enjoy your use of classical meters.
IMO you totally need to work 'APM' into Ryan's, and Hero Quintet seems a bit vanilla to me. o.o
Also, sonnets are ridiculously difficult to write. Huge props for that. I wish I knew someone who would do that for me. D:
I'm a poetry noob, what's slam/how is it different than what I've done?
lol I was trying to not have too many sc references in Ryan's poem, so that someone who doesn't know sc could enjoy it just as much, and perhaps someone who does know sc would simply be able to enjoy it more, or find more humour in it atleast.
I don't understand what you mean by "Hero Quintet seems a bit vanilla to me. o.o", could you reiterate?
Doing the sonnets wasn't actually hard at all. A sonnet is just a 14 line poem with a fixed meter, and I already always have fixed meter. His name spells the first letter of each line, and happens to be 14 letters long, so I just ended up doing a sonnet, and as I explained above my strict structure makes it pretty easy for me personally. Not to mention my muse was definitely with me for that poem, and with your muse all things are possible!
On July 04 2008 08:03 coltrane wrote: i liked it... even whe its a little hard to me to read right now, so many time without reading english, i think i missing a lot of stuffs
Anyway, i like your metrics, maybe because of the language distance i miss a little bit of humor.
gonna read them again tomorrow, now that i now what they are about maybe i can read them more perceptive.
Yeah poetry definitely is hard to translate/understand even with good understanding of the language. I really enjoyed translating Latin poetry, but I couldn't help but think that despite all the references by other translaters to explain ostensibly hidden meanings, that there was a lot I wasn't getting out of it that probably even average Romans couldn't either, that it was written for other Latin poets and scholars. I think there ends up being lots of irony in word choice sometimes in poetry which is hard to see sometimes.
Thanks for all the compliments and feedback! I feel like writing another poem now :D
His name spells the first letter of each line, and happens to be 14 letters long
OMG CHEATING. I guess it's because of the nature of a sonnet, trying to put all of your emotions into 14 lines.
Yeah, Link seriously is the perfect/basic hero. I came up with a nice concept for a novel influenced by Link / the Zelda games, but I haven't started anything because I haven't come up with enough background/story-line to begin, I just know everything that'll happen in the middle of the novel, but not the beginning or end =/
Am I missing an inside joke or are you just being a bitch. I've noticed you are very critical of writing in blogs, so I'm inclined to assume it's the latter.
Am I missing an inside joke or are you just being a bitch. I've noticed you are very critical of writing in blogs, so I'm inclined to assume it's the latter.
I'm sure it's both, but more of the former than latter I think I've shown him atleast the first poem in the past before.
On July 04 2008 10:54 Harem wrote: An Ode to Faoi:
Try to watch your rhythm, especially in the beginnings of your lines. Also, tetrameter tends to be more fun to play with, as it leaves less room for filler and less necessity for truncating words. Beyond that, practice is key. Have fun
Capitalizing the stressed syllables in a sample stanza:
Rising above to strike opponents down he comes,
RIsing aBOVE to STRIKE opPOnents DOWN he COMES" - starts with a trochee
Yearning to clean the field of filth as the beat drums,
YEARning to CLEAN the FIELD of FILTH as THE beat DRUMS - ditto
And eviscerate foes friends flee with eerie hums
and eVIScerate FOES friends FLEE with EErie HUMS - two anapests before it returns to iambic.
Not quieted by the screams of evil in sums,
not QUIeted BY the SCREAMS of Evil in SUMS - iamb, anapest, iamb, iamb, anapest.
Your lines are twelve syllables long but the structure deviates from iambic hexameter. If you are fond of the old forms, you should try reading your poems aloud to ensure conformity to the specific rhythm.
Killed but for what aim 'cept to fog the sun with blows?
Hath no bounds but the infinity 'yond the haze.
Earns the world and more with valiant deed 'thout strut,
Frequent use of archaic contractions tends to be irritating. Byron gets a pass because he is Byron. We, not so much.
WRT filler - you do not exhibit this problem in the samples above. That's just personal experience - when I take on a longer meter, I tend to pad the lines with redundant words to retain the rhythm. Iambic tetrameter usually keeps me honest.
When I say it outloud I just say it all in iambic oO So for that first line you quoted, I say it riSING not RIsing. But yeah, I probably do fuck it up sometimes where I'm forcing syllables to be stressed or unstressed when you might rationally think they'd be the opposite; I'm a poetry noob =/ And I've spent more time on some poems than on others.
I only use the archaic contractions when I'm having trouble and going over the syllable count. Personally, they sound fine to me.
But thanks for such specific help, I think I'll leave these poems alone, but keep it in mind for future poems.
EPT
I don't care much for this one, it's awkward.
